What lies ahead for Aggregators in UAE: Ken Research

Aggregators (Price Comparison Websites) have been lately introduced in UAE and within a short span of time, these platforms have gained much traction and are experiencing >200% Y-o-Y growth in their top line figures. However, unlike European and other developed countries, the penetration of aggregators is still very low. (~60% of motor insurance sales happen through Aggregators in the UK as compared to ~10% in UAE). Ken Research estimates the potential of Online insurance to reach 10% of GWP by 2024. How could aggregators plan to capitalize on this opportunity?

Regulations set by Insurance Authority of UAE play a very crucial in determining the operation flow of aggregators. On one hand, it does not allow aggregators to directly collect a premium for customers while allows for selling other banking products (loans, credit cards, bank accounts, etc) through the platform. Aggregators should focus on becoming a one-stop solution provider for all banking and financial products among the entire GCC Region. Why GCC? Because the majority of the partner providers (insurers, banks) are the same for which existing agreements could be extended beyond GCC coupled with similar customer behavior throughout the region. Nonetheless, it also amplifies the cross-selling opportunities among different products.

Another dimension at which major aggregators including Yallacompare, Souqalmal, Bankonus, and PolicyBazaar UAE could follow is client on-boarding for health insurance products, which currently stands at ~1% (aggregator shares of Health GWP). Not only, but it also provides higher commission rates but also creates the customers for tomorrow (renewal conversion rates are high).

However, the entire end to end process is not technologically driven. Aggregators have to work with partner insurers to manually check/verify documents/update details of the policyholder. Bridging this gap through technology deployment could fasten the process of buying policies. To capture the era of personalized services, aggregators also need to work with partner insurers and come up with customized, pocket-friendly insurance plans, make your own policy plans. For instance, in January 2020, PolicyBazaar UAE launched a pocket-friendly plan of term insurance providing a sum assured of AED 25,000 and AED 50,000 priced at premiums of AED 59 and 79 respectively. Such plans are mainly targeted at a blue-collar workforce who find it difficult to pay hefty premiums in one go.

Aggregators need to up-ante their capabilities in terms of technological advancement and product offerings to capitalize on the expected booming rise of aggregators in the coming years.

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